Chris Hedges Report - Sunday, June 21, 2026

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1. kpfk.org slash cars or call 877-573-5288.
2. That is 1-877-KPFK-AUTO to get started.
3. Nothing illustrates the inversion of the international and moral order more than the
4. genocide in Gaza and the shipment of billions of weapons by Western nations, especially the United
5. States, to sustain it. Part of this inversion is the unrelenting persecution of those who denounce
6. the genocide, risk their lives to halt it, and call for the rule of law. But the rule of law is
7. buried under the rubble in Gaza, and because of that, Israel is able, with barely a word of protest,
8. by Western nations, Spain being one of the few exceptions,
9. to abduct 180 Samud flotilla crews 500 nautical miles from Gaza off the coast of Crete.
10. This open disdain for the law of the sea was accompanied by the usual Israeli brutality.
11. Flotilla members were denied food, drenched in seawater, punched, kicked,
12. dragged across decks with their hands tied, and shot at with rubber bullets and live ammunition.
13. Eventually, crew members were transferred to Crete, where 31 were hospitalized.
14. Two high-profile members of the flotilla, the Brazilian organizer Tiago Avila and the Spaniard Saif Abu Keshek,
15. who is of Palestinian descent, were kidnapped and taken to Israel.
16. They were blindfolded, forced to lie on their stomachs, and beaten with such severity that Tiago lost consciousness twice.
17. When they appeared in an Israeli court, the bruises on their faces were visible.
18. Tiago had trouble lifting his right arm.
19. The two men were held in solitary confinement and went on hunger strike.
20. They were accused of supporting terrorism and illegal activity.
21. Joining me to discuss resistance to the genocide, the importance of the flotillas,
22. and the egregious Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law is Tiago Avila.
23. Before we begin with this latest, this is not the first time you have been held, of course, Tiago, by the Israelis.
24. Lay out the history of the flotillas and the importance of the flotillas.
25. Well, Chris, first of all, thank you so much for having me here.
26. It's very important that we speak about what's happening in Gaza all the time.
27. I'm one of thousands of people that have been involved throughout the years with the flotillas,
28. with the Solidarity Movement for Palestine, who have been answering the call of the Palestinians
29. to continue talking about eight decades of genocide and ethnic cleansing, an apartheid colonial state,
30. and how to defeat this racist and supremacist ideology called Zionism.
31. It's very important the work that you do as well, sharing the truth in a moment in history where the truth is so scarce to see.
32. So the flotillas, they are part of this movement that imagined eight decades of genocide and ethnic cleansing,
33. But Gaza itself has been under siege for 19 years by sea, by land and by air.
34. And for 18 years, there were attempts to break the siege.
35. And the first five attempts in 2008, they actually made to break this siege.
36. Two small fishing boats, they made it there.
37. They did the volunteer work.
38. They brought the food and the aid all the things that they were bringing But then after the fifth mission Israel started intercepting every single one of them some by this illegal kidnapping and others by attacking them and even killing 10 people in the Mavi Marmara in 2010 others by sabotaging the boats
39. Let me just stop you there, Tiago, because people may not understand. This was a Turkish ship and Israeli commandos repelled onto the ship. And I mean, explain what happened.
40. Yeah, it was actually like this. After 2008, December 2008, the first interception started.
41. And in 2010, after a few failed attempts that the Israelis were intercepting the boats or attacking the boats, people decided that they needed to go with a flotilla.
42. So they came with several boats, including a very big boat called the Mavi Marmara.
43. They left some from Greece, some from Istanbul.
44. And when they were approaching Gaza, the Israeli commandos, the unit Shaiate 13, it's an elite unit of the Israeli Navy, they attacked the boat and killed nine people immediately, six of them with shots in the back.
45. And another one was put in a coma for four years and then eventually died.
46. More than 50 other people were shot with live ammunition.
47. And the Israelis said that they were attacked.
48. That's why they had to shoot and assassinate people in their self-defense.
49. And that's what the mainstream media disclosed to the world.
50. But of course it was a lie.
51. There was a United Nations investigation that showed that six of these ten people got executed from shots from behind.
52. And they were actually shooting before they even boarded the boat.
53. So there is a documentary about this called The Truth Lost at Sea with the single amount of footage that managed to escape the detention and the kidnapping.
54. So it shows the truth.
55. It shows the truth about this attack.
56. And every single attempt since then have been either attacked again by bombs, like when they bombed our boats in Malta, by bureaucratic warfare, then when they pressured the governments to not allow us to sail, or insurance companies, or flag states that give us a flag to sail international waters, or have been sabotaged when they put ropes in the propellers, when they pierce the hull of the boats, when they try to put acid in our water tanks and so many other things.
57. and of course the interception, the illegal kidnapping.
58. So it's been more than 20 missions since then,
59. attempting to break the siege with people from all over the world
60. and have been intercepting one after the other.
61. After the pandemic and after the escalation of genocide,
62. we understood that it was time to do bigger missions.
63. So we decided to do an emergency mission leaving from Turkey
64. with three big boats that in April 2024 was ready to sail
65. with more than 30 countries represented, more than a thousand people,
66. more than 5,500 tons of humanitarian aid,
67. and they did bureaucratic warfare
68. and pressured the government of Guinea-Bissau
69. to remove the flag.
70. We were not allowed to sail this time.
71. So we kept on going.
72. Then we tried to sail from Malta,
73. and they bombed our boat in Malta in May 2025.
74. Then in June, we managed to sail with the Medlinha,
75. a small boat of 12 people,
76. myself, Greta, Rima Hassan, Yasmin,
77. and eight other people from six different countries,
78. and we got intercepted at 120 nautical miles.
79. And then the Handela boat went again
80. and tried to get there and got intercepted again.
81. And then we went with the Global Smooth Flotilla
82. in October 2025,
83. then with 42 boats with more than 400 people.
84. And we also got intercepted,
85. but the boats got very close.
86. Some boats got 24 nautical miles to Gaza
87. and there was a huge global uprise increase
88. where even a general strike happened in Italy the government was so cornered that they had to take measures against the Israeli apartheid regime They had to some of them recognize the Palestinian state
89. Some of them applied sanctions.
90. Some of them even sent military vessels to accompany our boats
91. up to a way close, but not close enough to get to Gaza.
92. And after October, we decided that we needed to keep on going.
93. We were planning for this next mission.
94. And then on this next mission, we suffer another attack and huge violations this time.
95. But that's the history of the flotillas, which is important to say.
96. People from all over the world, like many other nonviolent action solidarity missions, trying to do what is necessary.
97. When the states don't do enough, when the international community does not do enough, it's everyday people who need to do.
98. Like we say, when governments fail, we sail.
99. But they're seizing these boats in international waters.
100. It's a clear violation of the law of the sea.
101. Yes, it is.
102. We are talking about a rogue state, Chris, a country that is committing genocide, is committing ethnic cleansing, is structuring an apartheid state in the whole historical Palestine.
103. So for the level of violations that they continuously apply against the Palestinian people, this is just another one.
104. But the thing is that when they intercept an international mission, they are violating different laws.
105. Because there is law against colonization.
106. There is law against the violations that they do against Palestinians as well.
107. But the law of the sea says that when you're in international waters, no government can intercept any boat.
108. Especially when you have the right of innocent passage like we did.
109. And other than that, the International Humanitarian Law and the International Court of Justice, in the case opened by South Africa against Israel for the crime of genocide, they made a provisional ruling in June 2024 that stated that no country, especially Israel, but any other country as well, cannot stop any humanitarian mission heading to Gaza.
110. And when they do that, they're not only violating the law of the seas, but they're violating the biggest judicial court in the entire planet.
111. And they really don't care.
112. And that's why we need to make them accountable.
113. Before we go into what happened to you in this latest flotilla and your detention, explain why.
114. I mean, you know you're going to get intercepted.
115. It's almost certain.
116. But you keep pushing anyway.
117. Why?
118. Why?
119. Well, Chris, when we are part of this, first of all, we don't understand that the flotillas are the only tactic.
120. For example, spreading the truth like you do is a very important way of promoting a better world.
121. Like doing demonstrations, doing boycott campaigns, the people very brave disrupting the arms factories,
122. people doing all types of grassroots movements of awareness.
123. It's all part of the same process.
124. We don't see the flotillas as something apart from this global uprising with a multiplicity of tactics.
125. But the flotillas themselves, they have a special place in people's consciousness because it sets the alarm clock, makes people move because people sometimes they get stuck in the blockade of information from the mainstream media, in the boycott, in the censorship from the big techs, in their algorithms, with the silence of the states, the complicit states.
126. So the flotillas, they have a way of showing a big mobilization and a sense of urgency that puts some things to move.
127. So that's why the flotillas are important.
128. When we sailed this last mission, we were sailing with around seven months of the so-called ceasefire on Gaza.
129. And this so ceasefire didn really materialize for the Palestinian people Seven months and people were still getting killed Age was still being hindered the land was being stolen from the Palestinians and their plans for the region was far from peace was being ruled by war criminals like Netanyahu and Donald Trump
130. was being ruled by billionaires from the big techs with techno-authoritarian models of
131. dystopic models of working in Gaza with artificial intelligence and drones shooting people randomly.
132. So very bad things.
133. And the industrial military complex profiting from war,
134. from every bomb that falls into a Palestinian children's head,
135. there was someone profiting at the end of that quarter.
136. So the perspectives of this so-called ceasefire were dire for the Palestinian people.
137. That's why we understood that we had to sail again.
138. Not because we wanted, because we were doing all the other tactics as well.
139. We were mobilizing all the other fronts.
140. But the flotillas, they had a way of breaking the silence about this.
141. And so we understood that it was necessary to sail, even despite the fact that the biggest probability was to be intercepted.
142. But we don't actually sail to get intercepted because we really cannot tell, Chris, when is going to be the moment where the world is going to rise up,
143. where the pressure is going to be so big with the complicit states that they're going to break their complicity.
144. And the pressure is going to be so big in the Zionist regime that even themselves, they will not be able to pay the political cost of committing this war crime again, of intercepting a peaceful, nonviolent humanitarian flotilla, of denying the right of the Palestinian people to access and control their own borders, like international law says.
145. so we never know it's like we we are seeing a wall and the palestinians have been hitting this wall
146. of colonization for decades and we go side by side with them shoulder to shoulder hitting this
147. wall as well we never know which is going to be the strike that is going to break this wall apart
148. and then people will have the rights we just need to be there with them banging on this wall hitting
149. on this wall until this wall collapse so we never know which is going to be the flotilla the blockade
150. the boycott which is going to be the action that will consolidate in the victory of the palestinian
151. people in their indigenous resistance and true self-determination and sovereignty.
152. We actually cannot tell.
153. So we don't sail to be intercepted, but we sail to maintain consistency and solidarity.
154. We never know when we're going to break this horrific siege.
155. You're from Brazil.
156. What's the message that the genocide has sent to the global south?
157. Well, I believe the most important message, Chris, is that nobody is safe.
158. that the Zionist and the imperialist system,
159. they can go very far.
160. The total impunity that they committed this genocide in Gaza,
161. they understood that they could escalate to Lebanon.
162. They could escalate to Iraq, to Syria, to Yemen, to Iran, to Venezuela.
163. They could bomb a country in Latin America,
164. kidnap the president.
165. They could create a naval blockade in Cuba.
166. They could threaten any attempt of sovereignty
167. from Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, or any other country.
168. They could interfere with elections everywhere.
169. So it set a precedent, a very dangerous precedent for humanity.
170. And it showed that whoever thought that the genocide was only about Palestinians
171. was very, very wrong.
172. What we were saying for years in the flotillas is that
173. the destiny of the Palestinian people is most likely the destiny of all humanity.
174. We've seen the countries that were shown as the beacons of civil liberties,
175. of democracy and human rights, arresting people by carrying signs, arresting people by using watermelon flags, arresting people by posting on social media.
176. So we broke completely the mask of the global north as the people who the governments who should preserve an idea of civility, beacons of civilization.
177. So the Palestinian people really, they actually show us the lenses to see society as it really is, but also show us the map that there's no way out of this except for resisting, except for mobilizing.
178. So let's talk about the latest. This, as I said, is not the first time you've been detained by the Israelis. From the descriptions that I read, this was worse. You're, what, 600 nautical miles from Gaza, and you can take it from there. What happened?
179. First of all, we were at that moment of the mission, Chris, that we were not going yet to Gaza.
180. Our mission goes a long way.
181. So we sailed from Barcelona on May the 15th.
182. And we were sailing from Barcelona to Sicily, where we got more boats, more people, where we trained more our teams.
183. And then we kept on going.
184. When we left Sicily, we were going to pass by Greece, where more boats will be joining us.
185. And then we would stop in Turkey.
186. And in Turkey, we would train again all of our team, bring more boats, bring more people, do more mobilizations.
187. Some people that went just for the journey all the way there, they would disembark.
188. And more people who were going for the final leg, they would join our boats and come with us to Gaza.
189. But actually, there was a storm brewing in the Mediterranean.
190. We needed to escape the storm.
191. So we decided that we would anchor in Greece.
192. We actually needed that because our boats are old.
193. Our financial capacity is not infinite.
194. So we have old boats, as many boats as we can, but very old boats in bad quality.
195. So we had to stop for the safety of our participants as well.
196. So we were going to Greece and the island of Crete.
197. And then we started receiving radio messages and we started receiving some boats reporting malfunction in their communications.
198. until we lost the signal with one of our boats.
199. And then we understood that there was something odd happening.
200. And then some other boats reporters seen ribs coming with soldiers to that boat.
201. And then we know very well what it is.
202. It is an interception.
203. And then we said from the steering committee, we said, prepare for interception.
204. The boats that can head to Greek territorial waters, despite the fact that Greece is a
205. complicit state and they were probably totally involved in this.
206. and what the reports we see from the people who went to Crete
207. is that they were totally involved, totally aware of what was going on as well.
208. But then we said, try to get into territorial waters.
209. And for the other ones, they were coming and intercepting.
210. They actually managed to intercept 22 boats.
211. There were around 50 boats at that time, so 30-something they actually got to Crete.
212. Let me just stop you, Tiago.
213. Tiago, explain how an interception works.
214. Well, what we call an interception is actually a kidnapping.
215. They come and they come with big military vessels nearby us.
216. From these military vessels, they deploy some ribs, some small rubber boats with full of commandos, around 20 commandos, full of rifles and all type of modern warfare gear.
217. A lot of drones also accompany the action.
218. And they come and they board our boats with one or two ribs.
219. once they board our boats with the barrel of the gun,
220. they surrender everybody, they take control of the boat.
221. Sometimes they move people to another place,
222. to inside the boat, they take control.
223. Sometimes they steer the boat all the way to Israel,
224. to Ashdod port.
225. But this time they had a different plan.
226. They just wanted to kidnap the people They actually destroyed the boat and abandoned the boat there Some boats they beat the hole destroyed the engine for the boat to sink And then just took the people put on their ribs and took to a military boat
227. like a very big military vessel adapted to be a military prison at sea.
228. And so that's what they did this time.
229. So an interception is this, when they kidnap the people, the boat, the humanitarian aid.
230. but this time they were not even interested in that of stealing the boat and the aid like they
231. do all the time they wanted to sink the boat and abandon them there they just wanted to kidnap the
232. people and so that's what they did with 22 of these boats and 30 escaped and moved so we were
233. 22 boats 181 people in a military prison in the mediterranean with nobody having a single contact
234. of the outside world, nobody knowing how was our state, our health, if anybody was injured,
235. if anybody got hurt in any way. And we were in their custody. And in their custody, they did
236. very, very violent treatment with us. So when we got to this military prison,
237. they, first of all, put us in stress positions, like kneel to the ground.
238. Were you, just Tiago, were you handcuffed?
239. You were handcuffed behind your back?
240. Yes, yes.
241. They would handcuff most of the people with zip ties.
242. Sometimes when we got to the prison system in occupied Palestine in Israel, they would put the metal handcuffs as well.
243. But sometimes during some procedures from transferring from one boat to the other, they would cut the zip ties and then people would go and they would put them again.
244. And sometimes they would blindfold the people or would not blindfold the people.
245. To me, it was a bit different this time because they recognized me from the start.
246. It was actually the third time they were kidnapping me in less than a year.
247. So they knew me and they would treat me as an organizer.
248. So whenever they wanted to give a message to all of our participants, they would call me into a container full of commandos.
249. And then their commander would say, I want you to tell them to do this and this and this.
250. And I said to them, I don't mind telling our participants anything that is for their welfare.
251. If it's something for their welfare, I'll gladly do.
252. But if it's something to make them harm, I refuse to do it.
253. And then they would say, no, we just need to count them this and this and this.
254. But then sometimes they would ask me to do things that would do harm to our participants.
255. For example, they were angry because when they put us in this military prison at sea, it was four containers and a square in the middle of these four containers.
256. And in these four containers, three of them were for the people to stay to sleep, extremely hot during the day, extremely cold during the night.
257. And in the square, there was no coverage at all for the heat and for the moist of the ocean and for the cold.
258. So it was very harsh conditions.
259. They would, people would lack water, but there was some water, but not enough for everybody.
260. And people would lack food.
261. There was some old, old bread, but some people as well went into a hunger strike, myself included, Chris.
262. So what happened is that they put us in this military prison.
263. They would put the barrel of a gun to put people in line to count them.
264. They would throw stun grenades.
265. They would throw flashbangs to scare people off.
266. And people would get very cold at night.
267. So people would ask for jackets, would ask for blankets.
268. And what they would do, they gave like 50 jackets, but we were 181.
269. And so some people got jackets, but most of the people didn't.
270. So they would go inside the container They would pack themselves and cramp themselves in a way that would make it hotter but still would not fit everybody And so people would stay outside walking all night to accelerate their metabolism and to stay a bit warmer
271. And when somebody asked for blankets or for jackets, they would laugh and they would make fun.
272. They would point the lasers with the crosshairs of the rifles.
273. And then eventually there was many people complaining.
274. What they did was that they flooded the deck.
275. They put a pipe that pumps to flood the deck and people would get even more wet and more cold.
276. So cruel that they are.
277. And so at that moment, we decided that was the end of the second day in this military prison with no communication to the outside world.
278. Without knowing how our other boats, because we didn't know that these 30 boats escaped.
279. It could have been shot.
280. They could have been bombed.
281. They could have been killed.
282. We really didn't know.
283. So we were saying, how is the situation of the other boats?
284. And how is everybody here?
285. Because they separated six people on our prison boat on the first day.
286. And so we said, we made an assembly.
287. And at the assembly, we made a collective decision that we would stop cooperating with them
288. and would start this hunger strike process until they bring back our six friends that they separated from us,
289. until they brought people their medicine, especially the people with cardiac diseases,
290. especially the diabetic patients.
291. People needed blankets and jackets,
292. and people needed sanitary pads for women,
293. and people needed more water.
294. So those were our demands.
295. And we told them that we would stop cooperating.
296. We were on a strike, a hunger strike,
297. but also a non-cooperation strike.
298. And so they said that we needed to shut up.
299. We could not shout or chant.
300. And we decided that we would not obey them
301. until they gave us our demands.
302. bring the six people and all these other demands and then we started chanting all night and they
303. would point the rifle at us they would threaten us and we would keep on chanting anyway non-violent
304. type of resistance and then in the next morning they were extremely violent so they throw a lot
305. of bombs a lot of flash bangs and stuff and and uh board entered the inside area of the prison
306. because they would stay above in platforms on the on that boat they would not enter just when they
307. wanted to promote violence and to do some act of violence so this day they got in with a lot
308. of soldiers put everybody on their knees with their heads for many many for a long long time
309. and then they they said that people were being transferred by from boats and then we said we
310. only allow accept to get transferred once we see our six friends we don't want to leave them behind
311. uh and then uh they said no you're not gonna have this option and it just started trying to drag
312. people and so we stayed on our knees with our hands up and they started dragging people and
313. I was in front because I was negotiating with them and they would not come for me they would
314. come from the people beside them beside me and would take them and drag them very violently
315. and then would take more two more and then two more and eventually they came for me
316. and when they came for me they came extremely violent it's just grabbing me by my my by my neck
317. and dragging me and when they brought me halfway through the door of the entrance of this this
318. prison of the square, there were already five to six soldiers inside the other part of the door.
319. And they started kicking my head and kicking my body. And so my leg was outside. People would
320. see my leg shaking and I'm being kicked by them. And when here, them throwing me by the metal doors
321. of the wall And that when I passed out the first time Literally everything went black And then they eventually they dragged me up And when they dragged me up they were trying to take me outside to another part
322. And that's when I woke up.
323. I regained consciousness.
324. I was being dragged by them.
325. And then when I regained consciousness, they took me to a processing table.
326. And I was already handcuffed to the back.
327. They were pulling my arm very high on my back.
328. It was hurting a lot, my shoulder.
329. I thought it was broken. And then I could barely see from my right eye.
330. It was already so, so, I don't know how to say, so swelling that I could barely see.
331. And then they took me to this processing table and then the woman asked, you're Tiago, right?
332. And I said, yes. And then she started making fun of my face, said that I didn't look like Tiago.
333. And I said, yes, you've been hitting me very hard.
334. And then she said something in Hebrew, which I cannot understand.
335. and then they started taking me to another corridor.
336. And when they were taking me to this corridor,
337. eventually they actually blindfolded me at that time.
338. I could only see a little bit from below the blindfold.
339. It was not very well tied.
340. So I could see that they were dragging me
341. and then eventually I would see some boots of the soldier coming
342. and then when they come, they would punch me.
343. And then eventually they would continue taking me
344. and then another soldier would come that crosses us in this hallway
345. and then this soldier would punch me as well and say something,
346. try to make a joke or something. And then it was very hard.
347. Where were they punching? Thiago?
348. They were punching me mostly in my face, but also on my chest, on my stomach as well.
349. And then the other ones would continue dragging me.
350. And then eventually they got close to the hatch, close to the exit,
351. to the place where we entered this military prison boat.
352. And then they would put me on my knees and with my head on the ground
353. and with my head on the ground as well, a very compact turtle stress position.
354. And then I would only hear that they were dragging people from behind me.
355. They were dragging the other participants.
356. So I was in the transfer lane hearing them being dragged to another,
357. outside of the prison boat where they had to climb a ladder, go to a rip,
358. and then from that rip they would go to the other boat that I didn't know where it was or what it was.
359. I mean, clearly the violence, it wasn't, I know from speaking with you from previous detentions, they were violent, but it appears they've just ratcheted it up to a level not seen before, probably to prevent people from carrying out further flotillas.
360. This is Tiago, and thanks for the interview and all you do.
361. I have tremendous respect for you and all of the activists
362. who are fighting against the genocide.
363. I want to thank Max and Noelle and Thomas who produced the show.
364. You can find me at chrishedges.substack.com.
365. Will Gear Theatricum Botanicum returns this June 6th through October 4th
366. with outdoor repertory theater, events, and educational programs for all ages.
367. A Midsummer Night's Dream is back.
368. Alongside Romeo and Juliet, Treasure Island, Noel Coward's Waiting in the Wings,
369. and Bernardo Cubrile's dark and incisive new comedy, The People of Pompeii,
370. set in the aftermath of the 2025 Palisades fire.
371. Theatricum is located in Topanga Canyon,
372. just off the 101 freeway in the shade of the California live oaks.
373. picnic in the gardens before the show.
374. Further information...